No abstract

We report a strategy to enhance the ionic mobility in an emerging class of gels, based on robust nanoporous silica micro-particles, by chemical functionalization of the silica surface. Two very different ionic liquids are used to fill the nano-pores of silica at varying pore filling factors, namely one aprotic imidazolium based (1-methyl-3-hexylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, CCImTFSI), and one protic ammonium based (diethylmethylammonium methanesulfonate, DEMAOMs) ionic liquid. Both these ionic liquids display higher ionic mobility when confined in functionalized silica as compared to untreated silica nano-pores, an improvement that is more pronounced at low pore filling factors (i.e. in the nano-sized pore domains) and observed in the whole temperature window investigated (i.e. from -10 to 140 °C). Solid-state NMR, diffusion NMR and dielectric spectroscopy concomitantly demonstrate this effect. The origin of this enhancement is explained in terms of weaker intermolecular interactions and a consequent flipped-ion effect at the silica interface strongly supported by 2D solid-state NMR experiments. The possibility to significantly enhance the ionic mobility by controlling the nature of surface interactions is extremely important in the field of materials science and highlights these structurally tunable gels as promising solid-like electrolytes for use in energy relevant devices. These include, but are not limited to, Li-ion batteries and proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells.

We have investigated the stability and interactions in dispersions of colloidal fumed silica, Aerosil 200, and the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetraflouroborate (BMImBF(4)) as a function of the Li salt concentration (LiBF(4)). Photon correlation spectroscopy was used to study the aggregation behavior at low silica concentrations, and Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate the interactions in the ionic liquid and with the silica surface. We find that the addition of LiBF(4) increases the stability of the dispersions, with smaller agglomerates of silica particles and higher gelation concentrations in the presence of Li salt. The increased stability with the addition of Li salt is explained by the formation of a more stable solvation layer, where Li ions accumulate on the surface. This leads to an increased interaction between lithium ions and the BF(4)(-) anions in the solvation layer, as seen by Raman spectroscopy. Upon gelation, the Li ions are expelled from the surface because hydrogen bonding between the silica particles are formed. For both neat BMImBF(4) and Li-salt-doped BMImBF(4)/silica dispersions, a weak gel phase was found preceding the formation of a strong gel at slightly higher silica concentrations.

We investigate Li coordination in mixed electrolytes based on ionic liquids (ILs) and organic solvents and its relation with the macroscopic properties such as phase behaviour and ionic conductivity. Using Raman spectroscopy we determine the solvation shell around Li in mixtures formed by the IL N-butyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, the organic solvents ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate (EC : DMC 1 : 1), and the salt LiTFSI. We find that the organic solvent molecules preferentially solvate Li as long as there are enough of them. Our results are consistent with a model where Li(EC)(DMC) and Li(EC)(DMC) are the main complexes formed by the organic solvent molecules and where TFSI mainly participates in Li(TFSI) clusters. As the amount of organic solvent is increased, the number of TFSI around Li rapidly decreases showing a higher affinity of the organic solvents to solvate Li. The changes in the local configurations are also reflected in the ionic conductivity and the phase behaviour. The formation of larger clusters leads to a decrease in the conductivity, whereas the presence of several different clusters at intermediate compositions effectively hinders crystallization at low temperatures. The result is an enhanced low-temperature ionic conductivity in comparison with the pure IL or organic solvent electrolytes.